Death and the Visiting Fireman

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘It shows how clear your conscience must be at any rate,’ Smithers said.

  Stones in the wall crack. Round the table a stir, a rustle.

  ‘Conscience?’ said Dagg. ‘That’s clear enough. And now I suppose all them coppers are going around saying, “How can we pin it on old Joe?” The lousy bastards.’

  No joke.

  ‘I’m sorry they aren’t here to hear you,’ Smithers said. ‘You may not be showing a very high opinion of them, but you are at least manifesting your innocence.’

  ‘I suppose you think that going around shouting “I didn’t do it” is enough?’ Richard Wemyss said. ‘I suppose you think that anybody who has the sense to keep his mouth shut is a murderer?’

  Loud. Ringing. Not to be avoided. The breach in the wall.

  ‘I simply wonder what there is to keep one’s mouth shut about,’ said Smithers.

  ‘I guess it’s important for me, as an American national, not to get involved in a purely British affair,’ Schlemberger said.

  ‘Very natural,’ said Smithers.

  ‘If it is a purely British affair,’ Wemyss said.

  ‘It took place on British soil,’ said Schlemberger.

  ‘But at least one American national was in a position to do the killing.’

  Schlemberger laughed.

  ‘I only met the guy two days ago,’ he said.

  ‘But he had spent a long time in America,’ Wemyss answered. ‘What did he do when he was over there? I should like to know. Who did he meet?’

  ‘Now listen .. .’

  But Smithers interrupted.

  ‘Mr Wemyss has put a pertinent question,’ he said. ‘It must have surely been something in Mr Hamyadis’s past that gave rise to his death. What do we know of that past?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re right,’ said Kristen Kett. ‘I don’t see why anybody has to go into his past at all.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Wemyss.

  ‘Oh, Richie, don’t be silly. We none of us much liked Georgie, but it’s obvious one of us is going to be arrested for shooting him. I don’t want to make accusations, but I don’t think the police are going to have to look far, not once they hear what went on on the coach ride.’

  ‘I may be a simple old soldier,’ Major Mortenson said, ‘but I see where these remarks are leading. And let me tell you, I’m perfectly willing for the police to know everything that went on during the trip. Hamyadis behaved like a pig towards me, because he knew I needed his filthy money, but even if the police, stupid as they are, believe that that’s a ground for murder, thank goodness we still have juries in this country. You can’t persuade a jury to convict unless there’s a pretty good case.’

  ‘That’s what frightens me,’ said Daisy Miller. ‘The thought that, if it does come to light, there is a perfectly good case against one of the people sitting round this table. I can’t believe it, yet it must be true.’

  ‘I’m afraid the solution is that one of us is mad,’ said John Fremitt. ‘No doubt the police will investigate both the distant past and the immediate past, but I don’t see that either will necessarily help them. One of us has lost all moral bearings.’

  ‘You may be right,’ said Smithers, ‘but I’m inclined to think it’s too easy to assume every murder is committed by a madman. We take to that view only because killing on an individual scale has become a comparatively rare thing. In the days when it was dangerous to go unarmed on a long journey people thought of taking life as no more than an extension of taking purses. People, sane people, do have reasons for killing, and sometimes act on them.’

  ‘You’re quite right, dear,’ said Daisy. ‘Madness is something quite different from killing somebody because they stand in your way.’

  ‘Excuse me, madam.’

  The inn head-waiter, old, dignified, shop-soiled.

  ‘Excuse me, madam, your call is through. Would you care to take it in the office?’

  Daisy jumped up, took two steps from the table, returned for her handbag, thanked the major for handing it to her, thanked the head waiter, hurried half-way across the room, stopped, turned round, and said:

  ‘I am so sorry. A special call. I won’t be a minute. Or perhaps really I’ll probably be rather a long time.’

  She hurried out. The head waiter followed, stooping.

  There was a moment’s silence. A moment for the review of thoughts, of possibly careless speech. It might have become a clammy fog of reticence again only Joe Dagg said:

  ‘Here, I think I’ve been a bloody fool about all this.’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell us that you shot Hamyadis in a fit of absentmindedness,’ Wemyss said.

  ‘Now then.’

  Joe Dagg whipped round, thrust his burly shoulders across the table, glared at Wemyss.

  ‘You’ve no call to go saying things like that, lieutenant.’

  A shout, a frightened shout.

  ‘Perhaps I got a bit too near the truth,’ Wemyss said.

  Joe jumped to his feet.

  ‘Richie, Richie, say you didn’t mean it,’ Kristen Kett said. ‘Don’t let’s have a row, for heaven’s sake. I’ve got a head like nobody’s business this morning. I can’t stand shouting.’

  They looked at her. She was pale, strained. Under the eyes heavy circles.

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t be better off back in bed?’ asked Fremitt. ‘I’m sure there’s no need to be up, the police will understand.’

  ‘What, go up to bed and not know a blind thing about what’s going on down here?’ Kristen said. ‘My nerves aren’t made of steel. I’d go crackers.’

  Then a check, a gleam.

  ‘But you’re quite right,’ she said smiling at Fremitt. ’I would like to be in bed. I feel just awful.’

  The schoolgirl, defenceless.

  ‘You wouldn’t do me a favour?’ she asked.

  ‘Certainly, certainly,’ Fremitt said.

  ‘Miss Kett,’ Smithers said, ‘I don’t think you need worry about anything happening, as you call it, down here. The police are scarcely likely to do anything spectacular.’

  She ignored him, turned to Fremitt with eagerness.

  ‘I knew you’d help me,’ she said. ‘You look somehow just like my old dad, bless him.’

  She got slowly to her feet and began walking out of the room, each foot put down carefully, with effort.

  Fremitt got up, hurried to the door.

  ‘You didn’t mention what the favour was to be,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I? Just to let me know if anything does happen,’ she said. ‘Come up and give a little tap to my door. I shan’t lock it, and I won’t be asleep, just resting.’

  ‘But, I’m not sure …’

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘then I’ll be able to rest.’

  ‘Well, as Mr Smithers said, it’s extremely unlikely that anything will take place, but if it should I’ll see that you get to hear of it,’ Fremitt said.

  ‘Oh thank you. I knew you would.’

  Kristen Kett closed the door.

  ‘So it’s unlikely that there’ll be an arrest today?’ said Schlemberger. ‘I kind of hoped this whole business would be settled before the conference began.’

  ‘I know very little about it,’ Smithers said. ‘But from what one reads in the newspapers it always seems to me that, unless the murderer gives himself away by the very act of killing, it is almost bound to be some considerable time before the police can eliminate all the possibilities.’

  ‘Well, what have they done up to now?’ Schlemberger asked. ‘Of course, I scarcely count in this business, except as a possible witness of some detail or other, but certainly I haven’t experienced anything approaching a headquarters grilling.’

  ‘That sounds very ominous,’ Fremitt said.

  ‘So you haven’t had any? Has anybody?’

  No one owned up.

  ‘I don’t want to seem heartless,’ Schlemberger said. ‘But it’s a matter of some considerable commercial
importance that my society’s annual conference should go smoothly, especially on the first occasion it’s been held outside the boundaries of the United States. Are the police going to do anything?’

  ‘It’s quite likely they won’t,’ said the major. ‘At least, all they will do is to harass us as much as they think they can. That’s officialdom for you, everywhere. I dare say it would happen in America just the same as here.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Schlemberger said. ‘But if what you say about police procedure over here is correct, I reckon I’d like to ask a few questions around this table, here and now.’

  ‘Questions? What about?’ said Joe Dagg. ‘We don’t want prying into people’s private lives. What they’ve done in the past is their own affair.’

  He eased back his chair, glanced at the door, the windows.

  ‘I can’t agree,’ said Schlemberger. ‘I’d like a full account from each one of you of your complete antecedents. Then we can see for ourselves who is likely to have met up with this Hamyadis earlier on.’

  ‘Listen, wing commander,’ said Joe. ‘I think we’re all going to have enough on our plates with those ruddy cops, without you beginning. You can count me out.’

  He marched across the room and left. On the stairs heavy feet thundering.

  ‘You only put yourself in the wrong by not cooperating,’ said Schlemberger. ‘But in any case I guess his kid can tell us most of what we want to know. It’d make as good a starting point as any.’

  ‘Mr Schlemberger,’ Smithers said, ‘I think I may have misled you about the efficiency of our police. Personally I have little doubt that Inspector Parker, an extremely intelligent man, whatever else one might say, will see this business through with the maximum dispatch and the minimum awkwardness.’

  ‘I’m certainly glad to have you say that,’ Schlemberger said, ‘But we all doubtless have our contributions to make. Now, Peter, when did your pop first meet Hamyadis. Can you tell us that?’

  Peter looked at his plate, said nothing.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  No answer.

  ‘Look, don’t get me wrong, kid. I’m not trying to put anything on your old man. I only began with him because I reckon he’s the least likely. Now then, how about coming across?’

  No reply.

  Wemyss laughed.

  ‘I think the boy has given us all a lead,’ he said. ‘After all only one of us has got anything to worry about, why should we all submit to this rather humiliating business? I worried quite enough about my interview with Inspector Parker last night. I hardly slept at all. You can see from my face, it’s all strained, and I got a rotten shave this morning. I couldn’t concentrate. Well, now I’ve had enough. I’m going up to change into some more respectable clothes.’

  Schlemberger looked at his retreating back with a puzzled frown.

  ‘I think he had not met Hamyadis until the night before your arrival,’ said Smithers.

  ‘It’s easy to say that,’ Schlemberger answered, ‘but I’d like to know if he had any possible contacts with him. Hamyadis had theatrical interests, didn’t he? That guy’s an actor.’

  ‘On the other hand, Mr Hamyadis seemed surprised to hear that,’ Fremitt said.

  ‘Then has he ever been to the States? There’s a possible link there. Hamyadis was over there a good many years, I understand.’

  ‘If you’re counting American visits as a suspicious circumstance,’ the major said, ‘I’ve never crossed the Atlantic in my life, and I first heard of Hamyadis when he wrote and asked me to join this trip in a professional capacity.’

  Schlemberger looked from Smithers to Fremitt.

  ‘Either of you two gentlemen care to cooperate?’ he asked.

  ‘I confess to visiting America,’ Fremitt said. ‘Or at least confess is scarcely the word.’

  ‘And I have not been to America,’ Smithers said. ‘But you may well be right about its importance in this business. It’s a part of Hamyadis’s life that is unlikely to be much known about.’

  The door opened and Daisy Miller came in.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘breakfast over already?’

  ‘I think the coffee’s still hot,’ Smithers said.

  ‘Oh no, I didn’t want any, thank you. I just looked in to apologize for leaving you all in such a hurry. It was a call to my agent in London. It doesn’t do to miss things, you know, whatever’s happening.’

  ‘We were just discussing the past activities of our friend Hamyadis,’ said Schlemberger. ‘Do you happen to know what he did while he was in the States?’

  ‘He was in night clubs, I think,’ Daisy said. ‘But I didn’t meet him till after he’d left. Or, I think that was it. With people you just keep bumping into you don’t remember when you first bumped. I get so vague about dates and things, but I think he came over here when prohibition ended, if it did end.’

  ‘So he was in the States back in those days,’ said Schlemberger. ‘Well, that’s news to me. That certainly is news to me.’

  The didactic, informative irritating voice.

  ‘And you,’ he went on turning to Daisy again, ‘were you in the States in the prohibition days?’

  ‘I think I was,’ Daisy said. ‘There was something about sandwiches with your drink, or is that over here? But I was only in the States – such a nice way of putting it – for a few days. The show was a terrible flop.’

  ‘Then you didn’t have any dealings with Hamyadis?’ said Schlemberger.

  ‘I had scarcely any dealings with the States at all, any of them,’ Daisy said.

  The head waiter came in.

  ‘And when did you first meet Hamyadis exactly?’ Schlemberger asked Daisy.

  ‘Mr Schlemberger,’ she said, ‘I do believe you’re questioning me. I’m afraid I didn’t do it, you know. I didn’t understand all that business about the pistols.’

  ‘Excuse me, madam,’ said the head waiter, ‘can I get you some more coffee?’

  ‘No, no thank you,’ Daisy said. ‘I wasn’t having breakfast. I was having some fourth degree. Or is it third?’

  ‘Indeed, madam.’

  The professional deaf ear.

  ‘I trust your call went satisfactorily?’

  The bland attention.

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ Daisy answered.

  The old man blushed prettily, unexpected rose on the parchment cheeks.

  ‘I’ve never had the pleasure of putting a call through to America before.’

  Seven

  ‘Now, you know,’ said Daisy.

  She looked at them each in turn.

  First Schlemberger. The cat not sure that it wants the mouse after all. ‘I guess you owe us some kind of explanation, I don’t know,’ he said.

  Second Fremitt. The chance light shows the red apple is rotten. ‘I must admit there is some discrepancy, or at least perhaps I should say there seems to be.’

  Third the major. The pure shock of suddenly finding in the hands a football, a lampshade, a large cardboard box, empty. ‘I don’t know what to make of it. Varium et mutabile semper femina.’

  Fourth Smithers. The honest boy caught cheating, the annual event. ‘You chose not to tell us the truth,’ he said. ‘You had every right.’

  Fifth Peter. The stage hand finds the curtain has gone up. ‘Has something happened?’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sort of listening.’

  ‘Yes, something’s happened, dear,’ said Daisy. ‘I’ve been caught out telling a rather silly lie. Did you know grown-ups did that?’

  ‘I did in a way,’ said Peter. ‘There are some things Dad has to …’

  He jumped suddenly off his chair and scuttled from the room.

  ‘When I first took to schoolmastering I made the mistake of pretending to boys that adults didn’t behave like children,’ said Smithers.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Schlemberger said. ‘I guess a naturally suspicious turn of mind will come out. It’s a question of what you might call a professional disability. I’m su
re my British colleague here will back me up in saying that in our walk of life it’s one hundred per cent necessary to cultivate all those aspects of the human mind which lead us to see into the actions of others motives which they themselves may not even be aware of.’

  ‘I think’, Daisy said, ‘that I’d better tell you all something.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Smithers.

  ‘Well, I’d like to keep my secret, but, you know, I can’t. It’s just to tell you that I was over in America for rather longer than I said. The show didn’t flop, and something personal kept me over there afterwards as well. That thing isn’t finished yet, and it’s what I was ringing up about. And that’s all I’m going to tell you, except to say that in a way it could have been something to do with poor old George, and you’ll just have to believe me when I say that it wasn’t.’

  She left.

  ‘You were all for finding out the truth,’ said the major. ‘Well, it begins to look to me as if Miss Miller might have known Hamyadis in America. She seemed to protest too much about how little she knew him, even at the time. Now you have found out that much perhaps you begin to see the advantages of leaving all this business to the police. There’s a reasonable chance that they’ll discover nothing.’

  ‘Or, as I prefer to put it,’ Smithers said, ‘they are in a position to test the truth of surmises such as we have just been making. As likely as not we are reading too much into reticences and turns of phrase that mean nothing.’

  ‘You think the police will be able to judge better than us, do you?’ said the major. ‘I’d be ready to bet on the opposite. But perhaps that’s a good thing. By far the best outcome of this matter would be a trial with the defendant found clearly not guilty.’

  ‘No,’ said Schlemberger. ‘Major, you’re an independent man, but there are others of us who have business reputations. It’s scarcely right that they should be prejudiced perhaps for all time by a purely transient circumstance.’

  ‘Some of the people who could have done this murder are not the sort of person I would choose to spend a holiday with,’ said the major,’ but none of them is the sort of person I would choose to see hanged. The least one can do is to take a small share of suspicion so that no one takes a full share of the blame, as likely as not unjustly.’